Why are Fairfax Media avoiding mentioning climate change in the wake of Hurricane Sandy?
While respected international newspapers and the scientific community are linking Hurricane Sandy to climate change, it seems that none of the ”journalists” from Fairfax have bothered to ask the question.
In fact, searching ‘Hurricane Sandy climate change’ on stuff.co.nz brings up no connection what-so-ever. Surely no real journalist – operating free from a dictated agenda – would simply “forget” to link the biggest story of the week to one of the biggest stories of the era. At newspapers like The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Independent, the issue is being debated furiously, with all concluding that, while climate change can’t be solely blamed, the conditions that caused Sandy can be attributed to climate change, and the extreme weather fits all the climate change prediction models of climate scientists.
But, with Fairfax’s largest shareholder – serial polluter Gina Rinehart – only buying into the media corporation after being advised to use mainstream media ownership to promote climate change denial, it’s hardly surprising. And, this comes just the day after Fairfax completely ignored the Government’s plans to scrap a crucial environmental report.
It ain’t just the streets of Manhattan that smell fishy…
Please avoid sourcing your news from this propagandist, anti-environment media corporation, boycott their publications, tell your friends, and join our protest on facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/fearfacts/ .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/hurricane-sandy-wheres-the-climate-change-angle-media/2012/10/30/00c048f8-22b1-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/two-views-of-a-superstorm-in-climate-context/
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/on-our-radar-tracking-the-hurricane/
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/29-8
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-climate-science
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10843742
Blinded by the Right – the Two Johnnies
Two Johnnies spared by Stuff’s journalistic suplex.
Kim Dotcom’s visit to Parliament yesterday provided a number of potential news angles. Fairfax Media avoided all of them.
Instead, they once again reverted the inverted triangle of news writing, and entered the story from the one tiny positive Dotcom delivered to the underfire Prime Minister and his slipperiest employee, John Banks.
So, while the New Zealand Herald had “Dotcom: ‘Hurt’ by Banks denial of friendship”, and an intro saying he ”believes the Epsom MP should stand down from his ministerial portfolios”, Stuff.co.nz ran with the polar opposite, telling their readers that “John Banks has been through enough and it’s time to move on”.
In fact, Fairfax’s angle was so far down the less partisan Herald’s list of newsworthy points, that Stuff’s intro was the very last paragraph in their story. As one Opposition MP pointed out; “Anyone would think they’re different events!”
Radio New Zealand reported that “John Banks knew, says Kim Dotcom” and “Dotcom went public after ‘hurt feelings’ over Banks. So un-newsworthy was the Fairfax angle, that RNZ didn’t report it at all. TVNZ news had “Government ‘threatened’ by Banks affair – Dotcom”, and TV3 focussed on the absense of Banks himself during Dotcom’s visit, only referring very briefly to Fairfax’s “news angle” at the end of their story.
Only the Prime Minister’s mates at Fairfax led with a positive angle for the two Johns, an angle so flimsy, and so indicative of clutching at straws, that it cannot be taken as anything other than Fairfax’s latest attempt to protect John Key from the New Zealand public.
Had enough of this one-eyed, propagandist rubbish from Fairfax Media? Please avoid stuff.co.nz as a news source, boycott publications like the Dominion Post, join our movement on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/fearfacts/, share this post, and tell your friends.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10835123
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7701720/Kim-Dotcom-visits-Parliament
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/116156/john-banks-knew,-says-kim-dotcom
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/government-threatened-banks-affair-dotcom-5093693
http://www.3news.co.nz/Kim-Dotcom-visits-Parliament/tabid/1607/articleID/269863/Default.aspx
Rightwing hack’s dummy-spitting reveals insecurity of media’s cosy Keyphiles.
John Armstrong – good work champ!
It appears that the mainstream media’s most sycophantic National Party apologists are a tad touchy about being held to account by ordinary New Zealanders or journalists with opposing views.
John Armstrong’s ridiculous rant in yesterday’s New Zealand Herald about “bloggers” reveals that independent media are indeed having an impact on the way readers percieve the subjective reporting of a tired but comfortable corporate media establishment.
In attacking two of this country’s most highly regarded journalists in his misguided rant about “the blogosphere”, Armstrong has demonstrated precisely why New Zealand needs independent voices holding imbedded conservative journalists like him to account.
Clearly, John Armstrong protests too much, illustrating that – for the first time – the mainstream media themselves are being held to account by the people. They don’t like it. But, I have a simple solution; play with a straight bat, write with fairness, accuracy and balance, and don’t try to mislead us. Starve us nasty bloggers of oxygen and ammunition, and we’ll go away.
Online media critics, or “bloggers”, have been aware for some time that we are having a very real effect on the way mainstream media reporting is being viewed by the public, and we are clearly starting to get on the MSM’s tits. Good! This can only lead to fairer, more honest reporting, which is surely what we all want and is far healthier for the deteriorating condition of our democracy.
The comments forum attached to Armstrong’s rant is extremely revealing, and shows a general lack of public sympathy for partisan journalists who have failed to do their job. The New Zealand public have woken up to the irrelevance of a corporate news media that is enamoured with a failing Rightwing Government, and are looking elsewhere for genuine political analysis. In fact, 95% of the comments are scathing of Armstrong, and among the very few supporters are fellow Rightwing hacks Deborah Coddington and Fran O’Sullivan.
I encourage readers of this blog to join the debate, and leave further messages for Mr Armstrong and his ilk.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/john-armstrong-on-politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502865&objectid=10834120
Also, don’t forget to join our movement on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/fearfacts/ and tell your friends.
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2012/09/17/gordon-campbell-on-journalism-and-john-armstrong/
http://ideologicallyimpure.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/blogging-parasite-reporting-for-duty/
http://thestandard.org.nz/messenger-shoot-out/#comment-521909
Poorhate propaganda takes a leaf out of history’s darkest episodes.
Using the most vulnerable members of a society as scapegoats for its ills is nothing new. It’s a tactic that has been tried and tested by every fascistic tyrant in recorded history. And now, we can add it to the long list of shameful strategies employed by New Zealand’s current regime, and promoted by Rightwing media corporations like Fairfax.
Presented this week with a centre-Left Opposition promising to address New Zealand’s appalling child poverty shame by feeding children at school, the National Party and their allies in the corporate media needed a quick distraction. So, they went to the reliable default, and rolled out Paula Bennett with more reactionary initiatives and propagandist headlines designed to demonise the poor.
“Welfare reforms target kid’s education, health” Fairfax told readers on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday it was “Cost of beneficiaries $78b”. Neither of these pieces made any attempt to provide questions, balance or Opposition comment. Both were effectively straight propaganda, with Fairfax taking it upon themself to inform us that “ data will be used to inform government policy and to target schemes to help people move back into work”. This is clearly not independent journalism. Interestingly, an online poll on stuff used almost the exact same wording, which sounds like it came straight from a National Party press release; “It will help them target policies to get people back to work”. The poll question was “What do you think about the Government getting measurements on how much beneficieries cost?”. The other option readers could choose was “It is just further stigmatising of beneficieries”. The latter option was leading by a significant margin mid-morning, but by early afternoon there had been a dramatic swing. Looks like Fairfax are fiddling their own polls again.
Along with making scapegoats of the vulnerable, media that simply acts as a voice for government is considered an early indicator of fascism. Let’s also remember that Fairfax Media have been guilty of silencing intellectuals, avoiding independent research, and basing their articles on “truthiness”, or populist, simplistic information that sounds right but is unsupported by peer-reviewed data. Anyone worried about our democratic freedom yet?
With Fairfax’s largest shareholder Gina Rinehart last week calling for an acceptance of slave wages, it’s hardly surprising that this corporation lean so heavily to the extreme Right. Rinehart is the world’s richest woman and a mining billionaire who bought into Fairfax after British climate-change denial tsar Lord Ashcroft advised industrial polluters to take control of the message by owning media corporations.
Never letting facts get in the way of a cynical piece of propaganda, Fairfax have avoided inconvenient truths once again, such as the benefit mythbusting facts published on Facebook by Huia Minog
ue yesterday.
Instead, Fairfax today published an editorial that could have been written by Paula Bennett, and illustrated once again that they have no intention of reporting on aspects of the debate that don’t suit the Rightwing idealism of their mates in the National Party. In fact, despite creating a comments forum attached to the editorial, they have actively censored comments that are too close to the bone, an act that ironically confirms the accusations against them.
Please join our movement on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/fearfacts/ - help us to demand a return to news and an end to Rightwing propaganda. Avoid stuff.co.nz, boycott Fairfax’s publications, and tell your friends.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7656587/Cost-of-beneficiaries-78b-report
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7653313/Welfare-reforms-target-kids-education-health
http://tumeke.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/beneficiaries-cost-us-78-billion-and.html
Fairfax’s largest shareholder reveals once again why she needs to buy a media corporation.
With such extreme views, it’s easy to see why Gina Rinehart needs to buy a media company. The world’s richest woman certainly doesn’t have an instinct for PR.
But, having taken up the advice of British climate change-denying tsar Lord Ashcroft, Gina now has her own personal international propaganda machine. Little wonder Fairfax Media’s New Zealand political coverage is so outrageously Rightwing. Newspapers like the Dominion Post and the Fairfax news website stuff.co.nz have all but abandoned fairness, accuracy and balance in much of their reporting, and they regularly avoid stories that don’t suit the agenda of wealthy, Rightwing interests.
Rinehart made the comment that “Africans willing to work for $2 a day should be an inspiration” while criticising Australia’s economic performance. Earlier in the week she accused Australian workers of being lazy, jealous and having too much fun. But, as the LA Times pointed out: “Rinehart made her money the old-fashioned way: She inherited it. Her family iron ore prospecting fortune of $30.1 billion makes her Australia’s wealthiest person and the richest woman on the planet”.
If you’ve had enough of propaganda posing as news from this one-sided media corporation, please join our movement on facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/fearfacts/, boycott Fairfax’s publications, avoid stuff.co.nz, and tell your friends to do the same. With ever-growing numbers, we can and will make a lasting difference to the way news is reported in New Zealand.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19487985
http://fearfactsexposed.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/fairfax-owner-officially-worlds-richest-woman/
Government ignores own ministry, Fairfax bury the story.
Fairfax Media are once again guilty of treating education in New Zealand with abject contempt.
News that the National-led Government have ignored the advice of experts in their own Ministry of Education was picked up by the New Zealand Herald today, under the headline “Reckless policy ignored ministry’s advice”. The story relates to the Government’s dogmatic desire to impose charter schools on New Zealand’s children, despite all the international evidence showing them to be detrimental, and the advice of New Zealand’s own education ministry around the importance of employing registered, trained teachers.
The Government, who have consistently pushed simplistic, dogmatic, Rightwing ”solutions” on New Zealand’s education sector at the expense of research, data, and international best practice, are once again ignoring the experts. And, once again, John Key’s very good friends at Fairfax have done their best to keep this information from readers and voters. The version of the story that appeared on stuff.co.nz today was accessible only by an ambiguous link reading simply “No unregistered teachers: advice”. Even more revealing is the fact that the link didn’t appear at all on either stuff’s main page, or, astoundingly, in the politics section. In other words, Fairfax buried the story deep in the education section, where the average reader wouldn’t see it, let alone follow it to the apologetic version of the story they published.
The Herald’s piece looked like a real news story, with the intro: “The Government has been accused of ignoring the advice of its own ministry by allowing unregistered teachers to work in charter schools”. But, over at Fairfax, the well hidden version – presumably only published at all in a desperate attempt to retain some kind of credibility – was less than ten sentences in length, and contained no comment whatsoever from anyone in the Opposition.
I have frequently accused Fairfax Media of sidelining the Opposition and using their political coverage as little more than a mouthpiece for the National Party. If this wasn’t the case, why did they ignore the Press Release from Labour’s education spokeswoman Nanaia Mahuta, released at 10.29 yesterday morning?
The answer is probably the same as the reason they ignored news that over 100 leading education academics had written to Education Minister Hekia Parata calling for a halt to league tables. Quite simply, research-based facts don’t suit the argument of Rightwing educational idealists, so Fairfax simply apply an Orwellian avoidance of inconvenient news from actual experts. As I noted on this page on that occasion, marginalising intellectuals is not a good look. In fact, historically, this has only ever led to a sharp lurch towards extremism, as fanatical rhetoric and dangerous dogma take the place of research, moderation and open debate. It’s a slippery slope indeed, and Fairfax must be held accountable for their ongoing crusade against democracy in New Zealand.
The problem for them, is that those who peddle ignorance will always be opposed by those who are well informed, and the very nature of these two camps means that the latter will be smarter, and will ultimately win the real debate. This can only damage Fairfax Media’s credibility even further.
If Fairfax were really interested in providing readers with anything other than Rightwing propaganda, they would surely have included this important story in their politics section, and provided a voice to the Opposition in a genuine news format, as the less partisan New Zealand Herald did. The Herald, who quoted from Mahuta’s press release, informed their readers with a strong argument against the Government’s intentions.
According to Nanaia Mahuta: “The Government’s own experts advised it that the “potential for a negative impact on students’ education from teachers who do not meet the minimum standards for the profession is high.” So why go ahead and allow unregistered teachers into the classroom? It is reckless and doesn’t make sense.
“The Government quite rightly makes a song and dance about teacher quality. But its decision on charter school teachers shows it is all talk. It doesn’t really care at all.
“John Banks, Hekia Parata and John Key should tell the public why they know better than the Ministry of Education. Better still they should admit they got it wrong on charter school teachers, and require teachers in all classrooms to be registered.”
If you’ve had enough of propaganda posing as news from this one-sided media corporation, please join our movement on facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/fearfacts/, boycott Fairfax’s publications, avoid stuff.co.nz, and tell your friends to do the same. With ever-growing numbers, we can and will make a lasting difference to the way news is reported in New Zealand.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10831849
Revised transcript kinder to Key, but public reaction points to a widespread lack of faith.
So, apparently it was all a misunderstanding. What Key actually said, according to the audio record, was “we welcome the opportunities to cooperate further. In that context”, not “we welcome the opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in the next conflicts”, as was reported here yesterday.
While I have been heavily critical of John Key in the past, it is not my intention to deliberatly misquote him. I believe that an argument based on facts is stronger, and if the updated transcript is accurate, then the Prime Minister is exonerated of the accusations made on this page yesterday, as are the journalists I mentioned, on this occasion.
What has been interesting though, is the discussion the whole incident has generated on social media and the comment forums of news websites such as stuff.co.nz. Mr Key can take no comfort from the number of New Zealanders who genuinely believed that this was his intention, and assumed the record to be accurate. Similarly, Fairfax Media must question their failing credibilitry as a reliable news provider, when many New Zealanders are questioning their willingness to protect the Prime Minister from criticism. As I pointed out to one journalist today, you’d have to acnkowledge that if much of our mainstream media weren’t so lacking in credibility, this wouldn’t even have come up. There is something of the boy who cried wolf, or perhaps the boy who didn’t, about the whole incident. There is clearly a real concern among many informed New Zealanders that some media corporations – most notably Fairfax – have become so partisan towards John Key and the National Party, that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to rely on them for news. If this wasn’t the case, no one would even be asking the question. I would also point out that this has come in a week when Fairfax avoided reporting yet another Roy Morgan poll pointing to a change of government. I don’t need to tell regular readers of this page how generously polls showing positive news for the National Party are treated by Fairfax.
I stand by the argument that this was a great story regardless. If Helen Clark had spoken so poorly in a formal setting with top U.S. officials, I have no doubt that the story would have been splashed across the front page of the Dominion Post with one of those unflattering pictures. John Key is a former Wall Street trader, and millions of dollars would have been exchanged on the basis of what he was understood to have said. The transcript, even after being updated, notes that much of what he said was often inaudable. This is something that Mr Key needs to take some ownership for, and journalists might have found a solid news angle in investigating some of the implications of a New Zealand Prime Minister being misunderstood at such a level.
Ultimately, it seems that the slurring John Key was not overtly war-mongering on this ocassion, just drunk in charge of a country, perhaps. Which is a relief, as I honestly thought our military independence would be gone by lunchtime. Can’t imagine why U.S. officials would expect the New Zealand Prime Minister to be so warmly enthusiastic about supporting aggressive American interests…
http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/latest-roy-morgan-poll-shows-change-of-government/
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/08/197264.htm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7607653/PMs-Koiwoi-eccent-sparks-diplomatic-incident
http://www.3news.co.nz/Keys-diction-fools-transcriber/tabid/423/articleID/267938/Default.aspx
